


lovely dark and deep

by DarklingAndy



Category: Gravity Falls, Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Beast Wirt, F/F, M/M, Older Dipper Pines
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-09-13
Packaged: 2018-08-11 12:37:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7892566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarklingAndy/pseuds/DarklingAndy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One year ago, Mabel Pines was lost in a mysterious accident in Gravity Falls. Now, after a year of college, Dipper is sent back to the same town because his family thinks it will help him overcome his grief. Instead, Dipper falls into old habits and loses himself chasing a creature he's only caught glimpses of. The chase leads him into deeper places, darker places, into somewhere else entirely…into The Unknown.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Return to Gravity Falls

**Author's Note:**

> i started this fic a while ago, while gravity falls was still running, so just assume that there is no other stan twin and they never found the author of the journals, that bill was never trapped in a statue, etc

_the woods are lovely, dark and deep,_  
_but I have promises to keep,_  
_and miles to go before I sleep,  
_ _and miles to go before I sleep._

* * *

The only bus stop in Gravity Falls lies on the outer edge of town, on the side of the road where there's only a small pullout among the trees to indicate anything at all. Stan picks Dipper up there.

The passenger seat of the old Stanmobile isn't as comfortable as Dipper remembers. Stan picks him up at the bus stop and throws Dipper's bags into the trunk as Dipper folds his grown-out limbs into the low car. Stan has the picture of the three of them on the dashboard where Mabel had stuck it last summer with a rainbow sticker. Dipper's eyes fall on it and he feels an immediate swooping sensation in his gut, like missing the last step in the stairs. In the picture she was happy, smiling, her arm thrown around his neck while she tried to pry his hat off for the picture and he refused to let her, laughing himself.

Dipper feels his throat tighten up, but he doesn't say a word, just quietly peels the picture up and turns it over as Stan crams himself in the driver's seat. So he can't see it anymore. So it isn't staring at him.

"Sooo not much has changed while you were gone." Stan tries to make conversation as he starts the Stanmobile and drives the short trip to the Mystery Shack. Awkward silence. "Yep," says Stan. "Still the same old Gravity Falls."

Dipper stares out the window, at the trees flying past as they gave way to buildings and sidewalks. There's the bar where Mabel once pretended to read a guy's palm. There was the diner where Mabel had accosted the love god. There's the old convenience store where Mabel had been possessed by the ghosts of an old couple, still boarded up and more run-down than ever with half the ceiling caved in.

"So how was your first year at college, kid?"

Dipper glanced at Stan, who tries to hide the worried expression he's been wearing under his smile, but not fast enough for Dipper to miss it. Dipper shrugs. He knows Stan has been worried about him — everyone in his family has, which is why his parents sent him back to Gravity Falls instead of letting him crash at home — but he doesn't want to talk about it. He just wants to be left alone. "Fine."

He knows Stan is taking this seriously when they arrive at the Mystery Shack and he carries Dipper's bag in instead of making Dipper do it himself. Dipper follows him in and upstairs to their old attic.

"I've left everything the same." Stan opens the door. A cloud of dust emerges and he coughs. "...which I now realize was probably a mistake. Gee. I shoulda cleaned up in here or something."

Dipper pokes his head past and looks into the old room where he and Mabel used to stay. Everything's the same, his and Mabel's halves of the room still perfectly preserved, with Mabel's boyband posters and his red-stringed maps on the walls.

"So anyway." Grunckle Stan rubs his head as he watches Dipper drag his bags into the room. "You're, uh, probably tired from your trip, so I'll just...leave you to rest and unpack."

Dipper nods and sits down on the edge of his old bed. "Yeah."

"Alright then." He's almost closed the door when he pauses and turns around again. "Oh, and Wendy and Soos have a hangout planned for you tonight. They said something about 'for old times' sake.' I'll just wake you up when they show up."

"That's fine, Grunckle Stan."

With that, Stan shuts the door, leaving Dipper alone in the quiet and the dust, staring around at the unchanged walls.

Dipper wanders around, running his hands over things, picking things up and putting them back down again. There are the marks where Waddles chewed on Mabel's bed frame. There's the spot Mabel and Grenda and Candy colored on the wall and then tried to hide it with a crude drawing of Dipper in a dress. He'd been annoyed about it at the time, but now it almost makes him smile. Under the bed is one of Mabel's old sock puppets, lost now without its fellows. Dipper picks it up and cradles it in his hands. It's the one she made to look like him, still partly singed from where it caught fire in the explosion. That was when Mabel had let all her plans and hard work go to save him from being possessed by Bill.

Feeling tired all over, his chest aching, Dipper curls up on Mabel's bed instead of his own and buries himself under the blankets, ignoring the smell of dust and the residual glitter that line the sheets. It takes him a long time to drift off to sleep.


	2. The Forest Beckons

The next thing he knows is a loud pounding sound. _bangbangbang!_

"Dipper?" calls an old, familiar voice. "Dipper, are you in there?"

Dipper cracks open his eyes, blinks bleary a few times, and stretches his limbs out under the blankets. "Mmmrg?"

There's a shuffling noise. "Dude, are you awake in there?"

Dipper recognizes the voice as Wendy's. His eyes fly open. "Wendy?" He starts to struggle up.

"Do you think we should break down the door?"

That's definitely Soos's voice. Panicking at the thought of Soos kicking his way into Dipper's room, Dipper tries to kick the blankets off. "No! Don't kick down the door! I'm coming!" He manages to get up, trips and bangs his face on the floor, and finally makes it. He flings open the door just in time. "Don't kick in my door!"

"Oh hey dude." Soos greets him big his classic goofy grin. "I wasn't really gonna kick down your door."

"Dipper!" Wendy's face breaks into a grin as well. "Wow kid, you got older."

Wendy's different too, but most of her is still the same, which Dipper finds oddly comforting. She still wears flannel, though she's cut her hair, and the ends of it stick out, all spiky underneath the hat she always wears. He rubs the back of his neck. "Yeah, that, uh, tends to happen to people."

She punches him lightly in the arm. "Well, you look good, man. It's good to see you again."

"Thanks."

"Oh dude, I can't help it anymore, I gotta hug you." And Soos squashes Dipper.

As Dipper flails for air, Wendy starts to lead the way outside, and Soos releases Dipper to follow her. Dipper caught his breath and straightened out his shirt. "So what exactly is going on?"

"Camping trip!" Both Soos and Wendy answered him at the same time.

"No," he said with an omninous feeling.

"Heck yeah!" Wendy looped one arm affectionately around his neck. "We've got all the qequpiment."

Dipper nearly tripped down the stairs, unbalanced by Weny'd roughousing, but Soos was right in front of him and he only faceplanted on Soos's back. Soos didn't even notice. "And we mean, all the equipment," he said. "I packed the truck full of snacks. No camping trip complete without snacks."

"S'mores!" Wendy lets go of him and cheers. Soos joins in.

"But I don't have any camping stuff!" Dipper protests.

"That's no problem," says Wendy. The three of them emerge onto the porch and Dipper blinks in the late-afternoon sunlight. "Your uncle wrangled up a sleeping bag and stuff for you, and I've got a tent for each of us. You're totally all set." She points; sure enough, there's Grunkle Stan, holding a sleeping bag roll under one arm and watching the three of them with a very unamused expression.

"But I don't—"

"Overuled." Wendy shoves Dipper toward Stan, who drops the bag into his arms.

"Have fun, kid," says Stan, and Dipper almost thinks he sounds worried instead of annoyed, but it's hard to tell.

And that's how Dipper finds himself crammed in the cab of Soos's truck between him and Wendy, bouncing around uncomfortably as they drove into the woods as the sun dipped beyond the edge of the trees.

A feeling of the familiar settles over him; he can kind of believe that it really is just like the old days, as he finds himself laughing at Wendy's quips and Soos's goofs. It's so much like their old adventures, when the four of them would drive into the woods to investigate some odd thing or other. Even then, half the time, it had just been a cover for getting up to mischief and hanging out together without the supervision of caretakers or Wendy's friends to distract them.

They find a decent-sized clear spot between several towering pines and parked the truck. Wendy pitches the tents; she's the only one with the know-how and the lack of clumsiness to do it. Soos runs around collecting firewood and piles it up before starting the campfire. Dipper tosses his bag into his tent and unrolls his sleeping bag halfway in, halfway out so he can sit right outside the flap, facing the campfire, and be a part of their little circle.

Outside the noises of their little group, the forest is quiet. With the sun going down, the shadows are all getting long and gloomy. There's a sharp chill in the air as the day-heat faded away, too. The fire crackles and snaps as it gets going, and the smell of woodsmoke fills the air.

"Catch." Wendy tosses him a stick for roasting. She conjures up a cooler from somewhere and fishes hotdogs and sodas out of it, passing them around. Dipper takes it all quietly, spearing his own hotdog and letting it droop over the flames while Wendy and Soos keep up their conversation.

It isn't really working. Even with Wendy's and Soos's enthusiasm, even getting out of the house and being with his friends, even being back in this place that is so much a part of him, he can't feel like his old self.

"Here, Dipper."

Dipper glances up. Wendy's holding out a bottle toward him, a small smile on her face. As he takes it from her, she winks.

"What is…is this whiskey?" he asks, brow furrowing. "You're trying to get us drunk?"

"Eh, just a little bit." She eyes him. "Don't drink the whole bottle."

"I knew that," he mutters, unscrewing the lid and sniffing. He takes a swig and winces at the bitterness. It goes down burning, but he welcomes it — it's the most he's felt all day.

"Did you just drink it straight?" Wendy's eyes widen and she whacks Soos in the arm. "Dude, he just swigged it straight from the bottle. I was thinking you could pour some in your hot chocolate or something. That's so hardcore."

"Oh…yeah," says Dipper belatedly. "You know me…never anything the easy way…" He takes another swig while Wendy shakes her head.

Soos shudders at him. "I could never do that."

They pass the bottle around as the woods faded first into dusk, then into darkness. The easy conversation dwindles into strained silence and soon they're all sitting around staring into flames with blank expressions, every once in a while glancing at each other through the spiraling smoke, listening only the crackling of the wood and the occasional pop that precedes a flurry of sparks.

"It's really not the same without her."

It's Wendy that speaks up. She's staring into the depths of the smoldering logs, glassy-eyed. Dipper's chest tightens.

"I miss her," says Soos. His voice sounds dull and completely unlike him. "She always knew how to have fun."

Dipper says nothing. He plucks the whiskey out of Wendy's hands and takes several more big swallows, his eyes and throat burning. He doesn't know how much of that he can attribute to the smoke and how much to the lump growing in his throat, cutting off his words.

"I really wish she could be here," agrees Wendy.

Dipper stands up. He sways slightly and stumbles away from the fire, desperate for fresh air.

Soos looks panicky. "Where are you going?!"

"I'll be right back," he announces. His hands are shaking. He shoves them in his pockets.

"Dipper, no," says Wendy. "I'm sorry, we'll stop talking about Mabel, come back—"

"It's not that," Dipper lies, tongue feeling slippery in his mouth. "I just — I gotta pee. I'll come back."

He staggers away from the campsite, almost tripping over rocks and tree roots as he goes. The sounds fade away behind him until he can't hear Wendy or Soos anymore, and he stands for a moment, getting his bearings and letting his eyes adjust to the darkness. The campsite is barely visible through the trees, only the occasional flicker of the fire showing through the trunks from far off. Trying to control his breathing, he paces until he finds a fallen log and sinks down on it in a stupor.

There's a gap in the tree canopy above him. He tilts his head back and gazes up at the stars, glittering through the opening. They're always much clearer here in Gravity Falls, thicker, splattered across the black ink surface of the night sky. There's no city pollution to hide them.

Dipper feels like he's too small. Or the world is too big.

After a while he begins to calm down. It's a cold, but he welcomes it after the heat of the campfire, though he rubs at his arms as he sits. Crickets sing from the brush all around him, soft and quiet in the darkness. He takes a deep breath and settles back against the log. He doesn't want to sleep, but the trunk is comfortable. He can lie here awhile. Wendy and Soos can wait.

The woods are lovely, peaceful, comforting somehow. The night drinks him in, small insignificant human, lost in a wide mysterious world. Dipper's eyelids begin to slide shut, slipping down down _down_ —

He bolts upright. There, a glimmer between the somber tree trunks, a pale white light peering through the woods. What was that? Bits of pulpy tree bark break off in his hands as he pushes himself into a sitting position. His head feels like it's spinning, dizzy. How long has he been asleep? It can't have been that long; when he glances back, he can make out the warm glow of the camp fire and Wendy's and Soos's silhouettes still there.

He inhales a cold breath to wake himself up. His eyes probe the darkness. What was that he'd seen just now?

Then, for half a second, a pale glow appears, far off. Two pale glows, like eyes staring out at him. They hover for a moment and wink out.

Dipper sucks in a gulp of air; the moment left him shaking, goosebumps all over his skin, chills everywhere. But, even as he runs his hands over his arms, he can feel the goosebumps fading again, normal feeling returning.

"Hello?" he questions the night air, not knowing why he's even speaking.

Nothing answers him.


	3. An Old Friend

Grey. Soft shadows and suffused light all around. The feeling of mist against his skin. He drifts through the atmosphere, just flotsam in the universe.

The mystery shack here is in ruins, blown apart and coated still in scorch marks and dust. Dipper reaches out with one fingertip to drag it along the charred end of a fallen beam as he floats through, knocking a piece of the charcoal loose. All is silence.

Other things are here, too. A sweater floats past — in real life it would have been pink. There's a framed picture of Waddles. Over there, a binder covered in star stickers. A leaf blower. A disposable camera. Even an old rowing boat, which tipped at an angle as it floated over the roof, almost catching on the shingles. Everything drifting.

Dipper sighs and closes his eyes. At least here, in dreams, he can't feel.

"Well, well, well!" A grating static voice intrudes on his mind, ripping his peace apart. "Look who's come back to Gravity Falls!"

Dipper's eyes fly open. Everything around him experiences the invention of gravity and crashes, silently, to the floor of the burned-out shack. Dipper's feet anchor there, too, standing him up tall.

Bill, glowing bright yellow against the monochromatic grey, appears in a swirl of color.

"Bill!" Dipper snarls.

"Zzzzzzz!" Bill makes a shrill buzzer sound. "Wrong!"

Dipper has no patience for this. This is _his space_ , and Bill is the intruder here. Dipper is no novice at dreaming. "Get out of mY HEAD!" Flames appear on Dipper's arms, licking their way over his shirt; hot, red, rageful, bent on destruction.

Bill backs away, his arms up. For a flicker of a moment, he looks really alarmed, but the next instant, it's covered up by an expression of amusement. "Whoa, hey kid! Is that any way to greet an old friend?"

Dipper's teeth grow sharp, but he grinds them down. "We're not friends, Bill."

"Oh, you wound me, Pine Tree, you truly do." Bill sinks and comes to rest against one of the shack's crumbling walls, his spindle legs crossed. "I just came by to say hello, and—" He disappears and reappears at Dipper's shoulder with a _pop!_ and a bow. "We _llllll_ come back to Gravity Falls!"

Dipper spins around to face the dream demon again. "Leave me alone!"

"Hoooooooooooo boy, you sure are cranky." Bill turns his hand up, pretending to inspect fingernails that he doesn't have. His voice is too light and casual. "Guess you miss old Shooting Star, huh?"

Dipper freezes, hands still clenched. Everything in him goes cold. "What?" He sputters. "What do you know about — what could you — WHAT DID YOU HAVE TO DO WITH MABEL'S DEATH?!"

Bill ducks Dipper's swinging fists effortlessly, spinning a couple times like a fortune wheel. "Easy, I had nothing to do with it," he reassures, slowing and raising his hands. "That was allllll you."

Dipper can't actually cry in the dreamscape. Doesn't keep his throat from stopping up with a lump. "I swear to God—" He chokes.

Bill, in a rare show of good sense, backs off, hands behind his back. "Alright, alright, I'll get going. I've got lots of other things to be doing anyway. I'm a very busy triangle, you know!" He winks. Or blinks. Something about the eye-twitch says 'wink' to Dipper. "Oh, and before I go, one more thing: better keep your eyes open, Pine Tree! With you back in town," here, Bill nudges a cocky elbow against Dipper's dream shoulder, "things are gonna get verrrrrrrry interesting around here again."

Dipper swipes at him. "What does that mea—"

"Okie dokie then! See ya later!" Bill salutes. A wind kicks up, blowing like a storm, setting everything around them swirling. "And remember — the universe is a hologram, life is meaningless, don't forget to accrue wealth! Byyyyyye!"

"Bill—!" With a burst of cold, everything disappears.

Dipper is in the middle of the midnight forest, alone and freezing and lying on the ground, heart pounding in this throat. Hands scrambling, feet kicking out to search for the ground, he is up and running without stopping to think, to look around, to figure out where he is. All he knows is _get away get away get away_ , and the cold night air in his face, and the tree branches that whip his skin. There is no light to see where he is going; only dark, the stars hidden by the towering tree tops.

Bill is back. He's back and he's up to something, because Bill would never appear like that, would never come to Dipper unless he had something else he wanted, some ulterior motive, some trick hidden up his sleeve that he needed Dipper for. And while Dipper didn't agree to anything, he knows that Bill knows him well enough to expect this. This might be exactly what Bill wanted: Dipper upset and panicking by himself, on edge and watchful now.

He doesn't stop running. His breath comes hard, harsh, desperate. Gasping. His skin is too hot, and he's sticky with sweat. His legs begin to ache and his lungs burn, but he keeps going. His brain feels fuzzy, filled with crackling static like a dead radio channel, and it takes him a while to realize that he's lost.

 _Where am I? Where are Wendy, and Soos?_ He knows these woods like the back of his hands, he's been through them so many times before, but now he doesn't know down from up, left from right.

His foot catches on a tree root and sends him crashing to the ground, skidding across the pine needles. Pain shoots up his leg. Instead of getting up again, he sags into the ground, waiting until his breathing and heart rate slows and the pain fades into a dull throb. Tired, he curls up, tucks his head between his knees, and tries to breathe evenly. He's cold, tired, in pain, alone, and hopelessly lost in the middle of the forest at night.

The best thing he can do right now is wait until morning to try to find his way back.

The last thing he wants is to sleep. The thought of seeing Bill again knots up his stomach, makes him feel sick, and now he won't be able to visit his own mindscape for a while without it being tarnished by the memories of Bill there. This is his worst fear: feeling unsafe even in his own mind. He tries to keep himself awake, pinching at his cheeks to keep alert, but he has no energy left.

Curled up among dry pine needles, he black outs.

"Morning, sleepyhead!"

A clanging of metal pots rouses Dipper from deep sleep. Rubbing sleep from his eyes, he turns over to glare at the source of the noise. Wendy is making camp coffee in a saucepan and kettle; boiling water in one and mixing it with sugar, coffee beans, and syrup in the other. Soos is sitting at the flap of his tent, pulling on his socks sleepily.

Wendy gives him a sly smile. "Well look who's awake."

"I'm…" Confused, Dipper peers around.

He's lying, face down, on the ground, not two feet from the open flap of his tent. He's still wearing the clothing he had on the night before, covered now in a layer of thick forest earth, and the same earth is smudge across his face. He puts his hands up and feels scratches across his cheeks, the kind left behind by whipping tree branches. His hands are scraped up, too.

"So, mind telling us why you took so long to come back last night? And why you decided to sleep on the ground instead of your sleeping bag?" Wendy motions toward Dipper's unused sleeping bag.

He's back at the camp.

He sits bolt upright and stares around, but it's real; he's definitely back at the camp, as though he never left, sitting next to the campfire between Wendy and Soos and his own tent. There's a steady fire crackling and the water in the coffee pot is bubbling away. A bit of morning chill is still in the air. His leg is fine, just a bit sore.

"I don't…know…" he says slowly. Then, more quietly to himself, "I don't understand."


	4. Almost Memories

With worried expressions that they struggle to hide, Soos and Wendy agree to end their camping excursion a day early. Soos claims he has to go back because he forgot to tell Melody he would be camping, but Dipper knows it's a lie; they're worried about him. Worried that what Wendy said about Mabel has brought him down too much. They drive Dipper back to the Mystery Shack in silence, casting him uneasy glances and looking away when he catches them.

He doesn't care. It doesn't bother him. His thoughts are miles away, still deep in the forest. Wendy and Soos may think he's depressed over Mabel, but his brain feels like it's buzzing, like radio static, like flickering light bulbs. He can feel that old itch to get out and hunt down answers.

What was that creature he'd seen in the woods? He knew, somehow with absolute certainty, that whatever it was, it wasn't connected to Bill. And it wasn't an animal. No animal could have eyes that glow like that.

When he comes in the front door, Stan is surprised to see him. Coming from the kitchen, in a tank top and boxers, a cup of coffee in one hand, he raises his eyebrows as Dipper traipses past carrying his bag and sleeping bag.

"You're back early."

"Soos forgot to tell Melody he was camping," Dipper says. Without another word he makes a beeline for the attic.

Stan stares after him. "Oh," he says to the empty foyer. He takes a grouchy sip of coffee.

Dipper spends all day tearing apart the attic, stacking boxes on boxes in the upstairs hallway, until finally, in the last dusty and dark corner he discovers them: the journals, buried in the very last box. He pulls them out and blows off the dust. They're just like he remembers, six-fingered hands on the covers, pages scribbled in without order.

Back in his side of the attic, he clears the old mess off his desk. It ends up in a pile on the floor. The light bulb in the lamp has long ago burned out; Dipper screws in a new one and flicks it on and off a few times. He plunks down a fresh spiral-bound notebook, open to the first lined page. A fresh pen. A can of soda, which he pops the tab off. He's ready.

"Hm."

He pushes his hat further up his forehead, as he does when he's super focused on something, and rubs at his chin.

Daylight deepens into dusk. Hours later, he still hasn't made any progress, but his eyes are slipping shut, and there's a collection of crumpled, empty soda cans strewn around him. He's combed carefully through dozens of pages of the first journal, but he can't find anything that fits the description of what he saw in the woods.

And he's drowsy. His brain doesn't feel right, doesn't want to focus but he forces it.

"I don't get it," he mumbles to himself.

In the darkening room, he almost imagines Mabel is here. She would be curled up on the end of her bed, elbow resting on the bedpost, watching him with a half-interested expression. His chest aches to think of it.

"Aw, don't be sad Dipper," she says. "I know you've got this. You're like, monster hunter extraordinaire."

The problem is that he doesn't have enough information. A pair of glowing eyes and a weird feeling isn't much to go on.

"You've figured things out with less information before." She smiles at him, wide and trusting. The long tendrils of her hair curl up in the neck of her sweater. Dipper feels something swell up in his throat, choking him, making his eyes sting, and he looks at her, sitting there with wide eyes and a flushed, alive face.

"Dipper! Dipper, are you still up there?"

And she's gone again, and the empty, silent room reminds Dipper that she was never really there. The blankets on her bed are only a mess because Dipper slept there; not because Mabel sat there. The space she filled then is empty now.

Stan is calling his name up the stairs.

Scrubbing a hand through his hair (his hat lies abandoned on the floor where it fell off hours ago), Dipper takes a deep breath and tries to blink the bleariness out of his eyes. Maybe it's time for a break.

He stumbles his way down the stairs into the kitchen, staggering past a very confused Stan. Stan takes in Dipper rumpled appearance, the camping clothes, the dark circles under his eyes.

"How's it going, kid?" Stan blinks at him. "Wow. You look kinda…awful. What the — what are you doing up there?"

Despite this, Dipper feels good. Thoughts of Mabel haven't plagued less since he the night before. He feels comfortable in the Mystery Shack again, like the old days when it was home.

"Uuuuuugh, grunkle Stan," Dipper groans, and for just a moment, it's exactly like the old days, when Dipper would come in from monster hunting and tell Stan everything about it. He lurches into a chair at the kitchen table and his head slides onto the wood surface, narrowing avoiding the pizza box that's sitting there, open and waiting for him, the pizza still hot. "I can't find anything about the thing I saw in the woods. It's been hours and I'm only partway into the first journal! It's so frustrating."

"Aw, no worries buddy." Stan, relieved to have Dipper talking, slides into another chair and hands Dipper a paper plate with a big grin. "I'm sure you'll find it soon. Monster hunting is your thing, after all!" Relaxed now, he divides up slices of pepperoni goodness between them. This is almost home again: Stan and Dipper at the weathered table in the kitchen, eating by the yellowed light of a single bulb. "So," Stan says with his mouth full. "What exactly did you see in the woods? And when?"

"Oh…" Dipper peels pepperoni pieces off his pizza slice and pops them in his mouth. "The other night when I was camping with Soos and Wendy, I saw something watching me."

"Something? What, like, an owl or something?"

"I don't think so." Dipper could really use some of Mabel's energy right now. For a second, he imagines asking for her help…but that's an old dream, and it quickly drifts away from him. Back to reality. He feels empty and crumpled up, like an old chip wrapper or an empty plastic water bottle. "It was just like…a pair of eyes. But they were glowing!"

"A pair…of eyes." Stan's voice falls flat with disbelief.

"No! Yes. I don't know, it wasn't just animal eyes or whatever. They felt weird. I don't know how to describe it."

Stan just shrugs at him. "Hey, if you think it was something supernatural, then I believe you. You know what you're talking about, after all."

"That's right!" Dipper beams. "And I know it's something supernatural! There's no way any normal animal could have glowing eyes. I mean, they were _really_ glowing, light little LEDs!" He makes circles around his eyes with his hands to show where the light was. "I just have no idea where to start with that. I mean, is it a ghost? Or, uh…" His hand windmilled as he tried to think of other possibilities. "Uh, I don't know, a ghost…like…thing?"

Stan scratches his head. "Yeah, sure. Glad you're acting more like your old self again."

"Yeah," says Dipper. For a heartbeat of time, he wonders what Mabel would say to that, but then it passes and he's squashing down the thought again, pulling thoughts of monster-hunting and Bill over it. "Sure."


End file.
